Video shows torture of prisoners overseen by Saddam's half brother

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BAGHDAD -- A graphic video to be broadcast today shows Saddam Hussein's half brother, ousted Interior Minister Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, exhorting his police officers as they beat and torture prisoners.

"Go on, go on," Hasan tells his khaki-clad ministry police as they repeatedly slash prisoners with sticks, electric cables and metal bars at a Baghdad detention center. The police kick the prisoners again and again.

At one point, one of Hasan's own security guards is beaten with wooden poles, sticks and cables after pleading for mercy.

Hasan was captured April 13 as he apparently attempted to flee to Syria and is being held in a coalition prison for "high-value detainees."

A Ba'ath Party official who has the same mother as Saddam and is one of Saddam's three half brothers, Hasan was the five of spades in the deck of 55 cards distributed to coalition soldiers in the search for the most-wanted Iraqi officials.

A reporter for The Washington Times has seen the video pictures in their entirety. Excerpts will be shown today by the Al Arabiya satellite television channel, which obtained them from an undisclosed Iraqi source.

The gruesome pictures, with testimony by one of the beaten prisoners, are expected to be of value in building a criminal prosecution against Hasan.

The U.S.-led coalition or its successor will seek to prove that the interior minister ran a systematic reign of terror, coalition legal experts said.

The video shows prisoners held in a small fenced courtyard. They at first move from side to side as blows rain down.